Expecting GTA V to launch this year? Well, you may be in luck. A Rockstar employee’s CV says October is the release date

Rockstar have remained quiet on their upcoming Grand Theft Auto title since that trailer last year (which was awesome), leading to leaks and speculation on the release date. Many expect the title to launch next year considering Take Two’s strong 2012 lineup, though there may be reason to believe a 2012 launch is happening.

The released date comes from a Rockstar North employee, called Alex O’Dwyer. O’Dwyer is a character animator at the company, and his CV said October 2012 is the launch window across all three platforms: PS3, PC and Xbox 360. This would be somewhat surprising because BioShock Infinite is launching around that time, so Take Two could be reluctant to harm sales of two highly anticipated title.

GTA and BioShock?

An October launch would be surprising, at least in my opinion. I believe that, if GTA V does launch this year, then it’s going to launch between June-August. Max Payne 3 comes out in May, and Infinite comes out in October. So Rockstar would be able to launch three titles without competition from other games, ensuring the users base and sales are as high as possible. For Max Payne 3 and GTA V, which have online modes, then have a large community is important. And for GTA V, that community is certainly there. The only question is how does Rockstar ensure those users buy their game, and not something like Call of Duty. The answer is not to launch in October, because Call of Duty is unstoppable in terms of sales even with a huge GTA title which could sell 20 million units.

It should also be noted that Rockstar has never launched two titles in the same year, so this would be a first. Max Payne 3 is a long-awaited released from the development house, so Rockstar may want to support the online community with DLC and new game modes. With all that Rockstar has launched since GTA IV, through Red Dead Redemption, you can bet they will be making a big push with the online modes.

Written by:Jon Charles Jonathan is a writer on the technology and video game industries. He is comfortable with using Mac OS X and Windows; he began using Windows with Windows XP during his early double-digit years, and started using OS X in 2009 on a MacBook Pro. He began gaming on the SNES back in the 90s.